Low-Carb Paprika Chicken with Tomatoes, Green Beans and Olives

Low-Carb Paprika Chicken with Tomatoes, Green Beans & Olives 

An easy family dinner with gutsy tomato and olive flavours, freshened with snappy green beans. My fixation with excellent paprika  - both smoked and sweet - has not abated, and I can't get enough of this gorgeous ingredient. This dish is low in carbohydrates and suitable for anyone on a #LCHF or diabetic regime.

I'm sorry the picture is a bit fuzzy. I always snap pictures for this blog as I'm cooking the food, and that's usually in the late afternoon when the light is fading fast. This was demolished by my family before I had a chance to put some aside to photograph the next day.

Good tinned tomatoes are convenient, but they vary in quality and can be rather acidic, with a tinny taste, so I always use a large quantity of fresh ones in any tomato-based sauce, chucking in a tin for good measure. Tomatoes are packed with umami, and they are great for low-carb sauces because they reduce and thicken quickly.

I don't believe in peeling tomatoes for sauces, nor do I chop them. It's so easy to sling them into a blender or processor and whiz them to a pulp, and cherry tomatoes in particular are a breeze to liquidise because they're small enough to fit between the blades.

I have used both sweet paprika and smoked hot paprika in this recipe. The smoked paprika adds heavenly flavour, and it's well worth hunting for. You can find it at Woolworths, or order my favourite brand - La Dalia - from Yuppiechef. Use it sparingly though, as it is robust and can easily overpower the other ingredients.

A modest splash of cream at the end rounds out all the flavours, but you can use yoghurt instead - find tips for cooking with yoghurt here. I use leeks because I often can't face peeling onions, but if you don't have any to hand, you can use three onions, finely chopped.

Low-Carb Paprika Chicken with Tomatoes, Green Beans and Olives

8 chicken thighs and 8 drumsticks
2 Tbsp (30 ml) sunflower or olive oil, for frying
3 large leeks or 6 small ones (about 300 g)
1 x 500 g punnet ripe cherry tomatoes
2 Tbsp white wine vinegar
½ cup (125 ml) water
4 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed
½ cup (125 ml) white wine
1 x 410 g tin chopped Italian tomatoes
a pinch of sugar
2 bay leaves
a large sprig of thyme
salt and milled black pepper, to taste
1 tsp (5 ml) smoked hot paprika
2 tsp (10 ml) sweet paprika
1 x 300 g punnet slim green beans, topped, tailed and cut in half crossways
¾ cup (180 ml) pitted Calamata olives, or a mixture of green and black olives
4 Tbps (60 ml) cream

Trim any visible fat off the chicken pieces and set aside.

Some of the ingredients for Paprika Chicken.

Heat the oil in a large shallow pan, over a medium-high heat, and cook the chicken pieces, skin-side down and in two batches, for 4-5 minutes, until the skin is crisp and golden. Take your time about this. Don't overcrowd the pan, and resist the temptation to poke or stir them - the skin will loosen from the bottom of the pan when it's ready.

Remove the chicken pieces - they will still be raw on their insides - and set aside on a plate.

While the chicken is frying, prepare the leeks by trimming off the dark-green upper parts and making a long horizontal slit three-quarters of the way through their lengths.  Fan out the ‘pages’ of the leeks under a cold running tap to rinse away any grit hiding in the outer leaves.  Now cut them into thick slices and set aside.

 Put the cherry tomatoes, vinegar and water into a liquidiser (or a food processor fitted with a metal blade) and whizz to a fairly fine pink purée.  If you don't have a liquidizer, chop them finely. Set aside.

Drain all but two teaspoons of fat from the pan, add the leeks and fry gently for 3-4 minutes, or until slightly softened and beginning to take on a little colour. Add the garlic and fry for another minute, without allowing it to brown.

Turn up the heat and pour in the wine.  As it bubbles furiously, use a wooden spatula to scrape away the golden residue on the bottom of the pan so it dissolves into the wine.  Tip in the reserved tomato/vinegar/water mixture, the tin of tomatoes, the sugar, bay leaves and thyme sprig. Cook over a medium-high heat, uncovered,  for 15-20 minutes, or until the mixture has reduced by a third and has thickened (see picture below).

When the tomato sauce has thickened, it's time to add the
paprika and the browned chicken pieces.

You can tell when the sauce is right by dragging a wooden spoon or spatula across the pan: if it forms a channel that closes reluctantly, it's ready.

Season to taste with salt and black pepper. Add the two paprikas and return the chicken pieces to the pan, skin-sides up, along with any juices that have accumulated beneath them. Cover with a tilted lid and braise over a medium-low heat for 15-20 minutes, or until the chicken is cooked through to the bone.

Now add the green beans, olives and cream, give the pan a good shake, and simmer, covered, for a further 4-5 minutes, or until the beans are bright green and just cooked through.

Serve immediately with (if you're on a low-carb regime) Cauliflower Mash or (if you're not) normal creamy mash, or rice.

Serves 8. 

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Chicken with Bacon, Leeks and Cider, & how I met Gordon Ramsay, and found him polite

A luxurious dish with a silken sauce.

This is the one of the recipes I demonstrated at the Good Food and Wine Show last week.  I was pleased to receive an invitation to cook at the show, but gnawed my nails to the quick when I learned, rather late in the day, that 24 people from the audience would be cooking along with me in the Woolworths Real Food Theatre.  The dishes I'd chosen to demonstrate were too fiddly for a cook-along, so I abandoned them and instead selected three favourite recipes I knew could easily be done and dusted in 45 minutes.

As the main attraction, I settled on this easy crowd-pleaser, a recipe I developed for my cookbook Scrumptious: Food For Family and Friends. 

Before give you the recipe, I must tell you how star-struck I felt to meet Gordon Ramsay at the show, after watching his hugely entertaining demo, to which I was invited (by his sponsor, Checkers) as part of a media contingent.

I mention this because I complained bitterly on this blog three years ago when the 'VIP' ticket my husband bought me as a birthday present turned out to be a proper turkey.  It wasn't a good experience, and left such a sour taste that for several years I couldn't face going back.

So when I finally met the man, after a short wait in an over-excited book-signing queue, I was determined to get in my ten cents' worth. While he signed my copy of his new book Gordon Ramsay's Ultimate Cookery Course, I told him I was a food blogger, and his famous furrowed brow creased like an accordion. But I followed that up smartly by telling him I'd recently had my first cookbook published, and was thunderstruck when he leaned forward across the counter to grasp my hand in both of his, warmly congratulating me, as if I had recently won a Nobel Prize. Seizing the opportunity, I slapped a dog-eared copy of his autobiography Humble Pie on the counter and asked him if he'd be so kind as to write a message to my sons across the cover.  "Neither of my teenage sons was interested in cooking until they read this," I told him. "But now they are very interested. Can you please write something rude on the cover for them?"

He looked pleased, and asked, "What do you want me to write?"

"You f..king donkeys!" I replied, knowing my sons would be genuinely thrilled to be called such a thing (a famous line from certain Ramsay reality shows).

"I can't write that!" he said, clearly appalled by my suggestion. "Not for teenagers, I can't!"

"Oh, go on," I urged him.  "They will love it!"

With a bashful look - I can't think of any other word to describe his expression -  he scrawled a message across the book cover, but he censored his beloved F-word with an ellipsis.

This impressed me.

Anyway, moving on to my recipe. I love this luxurious coq-au-vin-style dish and make it quite often for friends when I'm looking for a comforting recipe with a complex flavour, but don't have time to fiddle around with a lot of chopping or stock-boiling or slow cooking. You can made this dish in half the time by chucking everything together in a pan and hoping for the best, but I've designed the recipe so that it creates its own deep-flavoured stock and sauce as it cooks, drawing wonderful earthy flavours from the bacon, mushrooms, leeks and chicken.

Any dry cider will do for this recipe, but you will get a superior result from a carefully brewed craft cider. I've used, on various occasions, two excellent South African ciders -  Everson's and Terre Madre - and was interested to note the subtle differences in the final result.

There is not a speck of flour in this recipe, yet the sauce reduces quite quickly to just the right state of silken thickness. You can't achieve this in a small, crowded pot, however, because there isn't enough surface area for the sauce to reduce in a hurry.  Make it in a large, shallow pan, such as an electric frying pan, or a paella pan if you have one.

If you can find fresh tarragon, use it by all means, but I find that good quality dried tarragon is just as pungent.  You can find good-quality freeze-dried tarragon at Woolies and in better supermarkets.

If you don't use alcohol in your cooking, use a not-too-sweet apple juice (such as Appletiser) instead of cider.

Recipe from Scrumptious: Food for Family and Friends (Random House Struik)

Chicken with Bacon, Leeks and Cider

two free-range chickens, or chicken pieces of your choice
3 large leeks
3 Tbsp (45 ml) butter
1 Tbsp (15 ml) olive oil
250 g back bacon
3 cloves garlic, peeled and finely chopped
500 g tiny button mushrooms
3 cups (750 ml) dry cider
2½ tsp dried tarragon
a 10-cm  sprig of fresh thyme
1½ (375 ml) cups cream
salt and pepper
4 Tbsp (60 ml) finely chopped curly parsley

Remove any visible fat from the chickens and cut them into 16 portions (or ask your butcher to do this for you). Cut a lengthways slice halfway through the leeks and rinse, fanning out the leaves, under cold water. Finely slice the leeks (you’ll use the white and pale green parts only). Heat the butter and olive oil in a very large, shallow pan, add the leeks and bacon and fry over a medium heat for 4-5 minutes, without allowing the leeks to brown. Add the garlic and fry gently for another minute. Remove the leeks, bacon and garlic using a slotted spoon and set aside on a plate. Be sure to remove every trace of leek and garlic, as these will blacken during the next step and make the sauce bitter.

Brown the chicken pieces on both sides, over a high heat, and in batches, for 3-4 minutes, or until the skin is crisp and golden (add a little more butter or oil to the pan if necessary). Set aside on a plate. Drain off all but 1 tablespoon of the fat, add the mushrooms and fry over a high heat for 2-3 minutes, or until they begin to turn golden. Pour in the cider and bubble briskly for 3 minutes, stirring and scraping to dislodge the sediment on the bottom of the pan. Return the chicken (skin side up), leeks and bacon to the pan and add the tarragon, thyme sprig and a big pinch of salt. Reduce heat and bubble, uncovered for 25-35 minutes, or until the chicken is cooked right through. Turn the chicken pieces over three or four times while they cook. Remove the thyme sprig, stir in the cream, season to taste with salt and pepper and cook gently for a few more minutes, or until the sauce has slightly reduced and thickened.

Scatter with parsley and serve hot with mashed or crushed potatoes and a green salad or vegetables.

Serves 6-7. 

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Sausage, Pumpkin, Potato and Halloumi Tray-Bake

A garlicky tray-bake in jewel colours that doesn't take long to put together and tastes gorgeous, especially if you finish it off - wickedly - with halloumi cheese and a handful of fresh basil leaves.

I often make all-in-one tray-bakes for family dinners - usually with chicken and veggies - because they're easy, and involve so little washing up. This is a good recipe for feeding a stampede of teens, because it stretches 12 sausages into a filling meal for six people (oh, okay, four, if you have very voracious teens).

The pork sausages add a lovely meaty flavour to the dish, but it's a good idea to drain the excess fat away half-way through baking, or you'll end up with veggies up to their waists in a golden puddle.

You can use either pumpkin or butternut here; I prefer pumpkin cubes (ready-cut ones, of course) because they have a denser texture. The halloumi at the end is an indulgence: use feta if you'd like something a little lighter, or leave the cheese out.

A handful of fresh herbs added at the end of cooking freshens up the whole dish.  I like basil because it adds a faint but intriguing aniseed note, but you could use rocket or flat-leaf parsley, or even some peppery watercress.

It isn't strictly necessary to parboil the potatoes before you start, but I recommend it, because it prevents the potatoes from turning leathery as they roast, and they will also be crisper.

To cut down on time and dishes, I parboil them in the roasting tin before adding the other ingredients and slinging the dish in the oven.

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Sausage, Pumpkin, Potato and Halloumi Tray-Bake

6 medium-large potatoes
boiling water
1 tsp (5 ml) salt, for parboiling
½ cup (125 ml) good olive oil
juice of a small lemon
4 cloves garlic, peeled and finely grated
12 pork sausages
500 g romanita tomatoes, or similar large cherry tomatoes
500 g pumpkin or butternut cubes 
a small bunch of fresh thyme (rosemary is also lovely)
salt and milled black pepper
250 g halloumi cheese, or feta cheese
a handful of fresh basil leaves

Heat the oven to 190 ºC. If you have an oven fan, heat it to 180 ºC.  Boil the kettle. Cut the potatoes in half lengthways, and then slice them into thick chunks. Place in a large, deep roasting tray and cover them to three-quarters of their depth with boiling water. Turn on a fierce heat under the pan, add the salt and cover loosely with a large sheet of tin foil. Set the timer for exactly 7 minutes. In the meantime, whisk together the olive oil, lemon juice and garlic, and set aside. Twist each sausage half-way along its length to make two smaller ones, and cut through the new link with a pair of scissors. Cut the tomatoes in half crossways.

After seven minutes, drain the water off potatoes - don't worry if they're still a little wet -  and put the pan back on the hob. Turn down the heat and cook for a minute or so, tossing the pan energetically, until all the water has evaporated and the potatoes are a little roughened at the edges. They'll begin to squeak when they're nice and dry.  (Watch the pan like a hawk as the spuds will burn fast through the thin bottom of the pan.)

Take the pan off the heat and pour the olive oil mixture over the hot potatoes. Add the tomatoes, pumpkin and thyme sprigs. Season generously with salt and black pepper and toss everything together so each piece is coated with dressing.  Tuck the sausages into the veggies (try to place them over the tomatoes, so they don't prevent the spuds from browning). Bake at 190 ºC for 40-50 minutes, or until the sausages are nicely browned and the potatoes and pumpkins beginning to turn golden. Turn the sausages over, using a pair of tongs, then tilt the pan over a bowl and drain off all but a few tablespoons of the fat.  If the veggies look a little dry, paint a little of the drained fat over them using a pastry brush.

Return the pan to the oven, turn down the heat to 170 ºC (180 ºC if your oven has no fan) and roast for another 20-25 minutes, or until the pumpkin is very tender. Cut the halloumi cheese into cubes and scatter them over the vegetables. Turn on the oven grill and cook for a further 4-5 minutes, or until the cheese is soft and beginning to turn golden on the corners.  Scatter the basil leaves over the pan and serve immediately.  A spritz of lemon juice just before serving gives this dish a lovely lift.

Serves 6.  Print Friendly